Long Road Trips and Longest trip

[BlueRover]

Originally Posted by SteveMak

I just drove from Ontario Canada to Florida USA (1900 km = 1178 miles) 1-way, at 50 MPH. I was hypermiling, and enjoying the casual, unhurried, right-lane drive. I do this 2 or 3 times a year to visit a close friend. He flies up, 1-way, and we drive down to his place together over 2 days.

My math may be a little slow but if your top speed is 50 your average speed would be around 45 max.
So 1178 / 45 = 26.17 hours or 13.08 hours driving a day never mind stops for food and what ever. Sounds like a hellish drive and dangerous way to travel. professional driver do not spend that long behind the wheel.

[srellim234]

We have family all across the U.S. so we alternate from a western loop of about 2,100 miles one summer to an eastern trip of 5,500 miles the next. We really enjoy just setting the cruise control for the speed limit, staying in the right lane and enjoying the things this country has to offer. We try not to set fixed times to be anywhere so if there's something new we'd like to explore we can just pull off the highway and check it out. We've seen some really neat things we otherwise would never had even known about, let alone seen.

[DesertRat2011]

Wife is from S.D. so every other year we drive back there. 4000 or so miles round trip. As we own a RV we tow it. Nothing like having your own bed & bathroom along.

[BlueRover]

srellim

Like you I enjoy the freedom of the road. Set my cruise control to 15KM above the speed limit in Canada and 5MPH faster in the states. Will see one traffic police man in Canada in a day and way to many to count in some states LOL.

Have taken so many side roads to see the "Largest (fill in the blanks) ...... in the world" Drives my Navigation crazy with the "constant recalculating route" I know they sometimes looked tacky but I do miss the large road signs advertising the next tourist trap or attraction.

Next trip (fingers crossed) will be down the west coast from Canada to Santa Barbra along the coast Highway making time to once again drive through the hollow trees. Then to Palm Springs to see the Salton sea, Death Valley, Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest and back north.

[BlueRover]

Originally Posted by DesertRat2011

Wife is from S.D.

Does Wall Drug still offer free water?? One of our memories of SD, that and the 1001 caves.

Not American but was very impressed with Mount Rushmore

[cuts_off_prius]

Longest trip I believe was from Chicago to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee, covering almost 600 miles in our (when we had it) Nissan Murano 3.5 V6 AWD with CVT. Four adults with maxed out trunk, three of us drove, since we all liked the open road. It began to get hilly starting from Kentucky. We typically drove 75-80 mph and averaged around 23-24 MPG, which reflects the revised EPA rating of 17/23 city/highway.

Definitely looking forward to longer trips this time in our CRV.

[Draigflag]

Originally Posted by SteveMak

Draigflag: Try measuring your fuel economy at a steady 50 MPH for several hours. You have a very respectable lifetime number on your Chloe, but you'll get a "mind blown" pure-highway economy-mode number in pure highway driving :-) If you ever try it, please email me to let me know what you got. I suggest (1) fill-up near a highway, (2) drive at 50 MPH for at least 3 hours, (3) fill-up near a highway, just to reduce or eliminate the effects of non-highway driving.

Steve, a bit off topic, but I thought this would interest you. Green car guide tested the new VW Passat Blue motion and did a test similar to what you suggested, set the Cruise at 55 MPH and got 104 MPG, they then set it at 60 and got 90 MPG.

They went to the US and did a 2000 mile trip in a petrol car and got 20 MPG and wished they were back in the Passat as the average speed was 55 MPH the same. Anyway, full story here:

Volkswagen Passat BlueMotion REVIEW - GreenCarGuide.co.uk

[BlueRover]

So they compare a small Passat Diesel sedan to what ???? A Dodge Hemi???

[Draigflag]

No idea, don't think they say. It is pretty disappointing having a car with a drink problem soon after driving something so effecient though. I had the same issue recently when I drove a new GTI.

[tommypress]

Originally Posted by benlovesgoddess

A couple of years ago i drove to the top of Scotland and back, around 1,200 miles in 3-4 days.
I'd like to do it again this year.
Had a 900 mile round trip to a Scottish Island 10 years ago.
We live near the North York Moors - each weekend for the last month i make an 80 - 100 mile scenic drive and walk.
The hills kill my economy!

Inspiring post. I am only talking about the travel part.